Emily P. Bissell

Emily Bissell was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1931. At a young age, Bissell made a name for herself by founding Wilmington’s first public kindergarten and by making efforts to implement child labor laws in the state. She also founded an organization to provide social services to the German and Irish immigrant families in her city. In 1907, Bissell introduced Christmas Seals, stamps whose sales proceeds went to help children with tuberculosis. Despite her convictions on many issues, Bissell was against women having the vote or careers, and at the 1900 U.S. Senate Committee on Women’s Suffrage, she argued that women had no place voting or in politics.